Are we screwed, then?

I have just watched a series of interesting documentaries by Adam Curtis called The Century of the Self (4 hour long episodes orginally broadcast on BBC2 now available on Google Video). They look at the rise of Marketing and Public Relations - principally based on the work of Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays.

The thrust of the programmes is that though the development of psychological techniques for marketing Big Business has radically changed the social outlook of Western society. Rather than selling us what we need, our most basic desires can be explored and products produced to meet them - and, of course, our desires can be aroused too so that we are more open to the marketers' message.

We are reduced from citizens to consumers kept under control by inflaming our desires through advertising and then providing the material means of (temporarily) satisfying them. It is a modern version of the Roman policy of panem et circenses - bread and circuses - bemoaned by the poet Juvenal.

I've been wondering recently, after having seen An Inconvenient Truth, if we will be able to make the paradigm shift, the change of societal mindset, necessary to meet the challenge of combating the effects of global warming. To be honest, I am not optimistic. Bernays and his followers have helped form a society where the vast majority are primarily concerned with convenience, personal comfort and short-term gratification.

Are we screwed, then? I am in my early forties so I don't think that I will live to see the very worst effects of global warming in my part of the world. As its effects become ever more apparent, more, of course, will be down to help slow down the process - but it may well be too late. I have a couple of neices, both toddlers, and I wonder what the world will be like when they are old ladies. Warmer, more fractious and a lot more dangerous, I suspect.